Music: Tara plays three instruments and sings. She’d love to make a folk-rock album someday, but she’s not crazy about performing in front of an audience. “I get stage fright,” she says.

Favorite computer game in high school: Civilization. Her favorite board game was San Juan.

Creative problem solving in engineering: “When you come to tackle a problem, there are multiple avenues of pursuit. You can solve any problem five ways—or even ten ways—and by talking to other engineers. There’s a lot of creativity there and a lot of room to just think and exercise your mind.”

Advice to anyone interested in designing computer games: “Go to a university with a good computer science program.” But, she adds, “it’s important to take a rich variety of classes and learn everything you can because you never know. Life changes. Getting a full education will benefit you later on in ways you can’t imagine now.”

Major funding for Engineer Your Life provided by The National Science Foundation and Northrop Grumman Foundation. Additional funding provided by Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr and the United Engineering Foundation (ASCE, ASME, AIChE, IEEE, AIME).